Airport Scam

[ohm]

by keith1867 on Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:41 p07 [195.188.220.xx]
I was shocked to read that this sort of thing was happening in the Airport and the Keeng Power Company may have shot themselves in the foot. I for one will not be buying anything from the Duty Free owned by them next time or any other time I come to the wonderful country that is Thailand.

Dear Keith,
I'm not clear what you are referring to?
Is it this?


Now new allegations have been made that a number of passengers are being detained every month in the duty free area on suspicion of shoplifting, and then held by the police until they pay large sums of money to buy their freedom.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 154497.stm

[keith1867]

Hi Ohm

It is that story on the BBC which seems to be one of the most read stories on the BBC website which is not good news for Thailand as lots of people all over the world look at the site. The Thailand government needs to act on this as in these difficult times the country needs the tourists. This sort of thing will stop people coming to Thailand and if I lived in Bangkok I would tell every tourist about it. Hopefully the duty free company will lose so much money that they are forced to dimiss the employees doing this. The government should get some people in undercover to see if the tourists are being ripped off and then dismiss them all (Police included) and deport this Tony guy. What ever happened to earning a honest Baht and is this the tip of an iceberg and how many more scams are there. I will not be setting foot in a duty free shop at the airport and I am sure I will not be the only one. If all the tourists don't shop there the owners will have to do something about it. My advice is to boycott the duty free shops until the scam is stopped.

Regards Keith

[petesie]

I never usually consider buying anything from the airport so called Duty Free area as they are considerably more expensive than the same item purchased from a Thai supermarket or one in my own country..........unless they make the price more attractive to the traveller then they will not have the custom........

The scam they are running is yet another clear case of a widespread corruption that is now considered acceptable practice. As word of this will now be known to everyone that intends to travel to Thailand the Duty Free areas sales will decline and they will resort to the next scam, whatever that will be........

This requires action by the airport authorities at the instigation of Goverment to stamp out this particular form of graft. It may even be at the behest of IATA or similar travel organisations to impose restrictions on the likes of KDF.............

If this activity continues unabated then more potential cancellations or change of plans will ensue.........so Airport Authorities.....as they say in LoS.........up to you.......

[timjackelton]

The scam they are running is yet another clear case of a widespread corruption that is now considered acceptable practice. As word of this will now be known to everyone that intends to travel to Thailand the Duty Free areas sales will decline and they will resort to the next scam, whatever that will be........

Well said, The Land Of Smiles will have the smiles wiped in a short period of time if this is allowed to continue. Many above have already stated the obvious, find these zig zager's and bring them to justice.

If the BBC can find them why can't the Thai authorities find them?
From the BBC story

The next morning the two were given an interpreter, a Sri Lankan national called Tony, who works part-time for the police.The BBC has spoken to Tony and the regional police commander, Colonel Teeradej Phanuphan.

They both say Tony was merely helping the couple with translation, and raising bail to keep them out of prison.

WOW and Thailand is doing nothing about it? How about a photo of Tony since he works for the police, there must be one on file somewhere! (sure)

Thai Airways is in big trouble financially, tourism is down, International flights in and out of Thailand are reducing and the economy is in big trouble but Tony and whoever works with him apparently still have a job.

That new airport has been one disaster after another since it opened, don't you just love the line from Tony

they could try to get the bail portion refunded. Colonel Teeradej says he will investigate any possible irregularities in their treatment. But he said any arrangement between the couple and Tony was a private affair, which did not involve the police.

A bit like trying to get your money back for that dud Elite Card Thaksin thought up! The mind boggles!

[Chaem]

At the //// \\\\\ Bank after coming out of the Immigration and customs we changed EURO's in BAHT.
There I was short-changed 1000 Baht. Complain ? Useless. THIS IS THAILAND !

[stilljustbrowsing]

You all do realise that 'Tony' is 'Y not' backwards and so will continue to rip people off until scamming is stopped, period.

[Ian]

What I find hilarious is that KP are now so worried about a drastic drop in their revenue that they have requested the British embassy in Bangkok to contact the British media and say nice things about them:D
Knowing the British Embassy they are probably daft enough to do that:D

[mekong]

Sad story's been popping up on police arresting tourist for rasom @the airport.
......
Advice is to buy a few prepay credit cards at home for use abroad,especially hotel reservations,make all deposits with pre pay cards only and use cash as much as possible.

Sure been sad seeing Thailand's name being so tarnished in the recent past

[obroadie]

You All Need To Get Off Your Soap Boxes.

If you are referring to the respectable looking couple from England (although she is Chinese) then you are as guilty as I was at making assumptions. If you go to the ////// Power website you can watch the CCTV footage of the woman clearly snatching a wallet and when she thought she was shielded by the display she put the wallet in her bag under her left arm.

Watch here http://www.kingpower.com/2009/popup/pop_case2.html

After that the airport security went looking for them and found them sitting in a restaurant but sitting at different tables and they had changed some of their clothing to look different. They approached the woman and on seeing this the man got up and left and they followed him into the bathrooms where they found the wallet dumped in a bin.

These two are thieves and should go to prison.

////// Power handed them over to the police and that was the extent of their involvement.

What the police did was criminal and the so called interpreter from Sri Lanka should be arrested too because there's no way he's an 'unpaid volunteer just helping foreigners when they get into trouble'.

Personally I despise people who steal for selfish gain and I think it should be 3 strikes and you lose a hand. But thats just me. Anyone who disagrees I hope you never get robbed on the other side of the world, robbed of everything including your last cent that you had worked so hard for and you were just about to buy your onward flight. That was 7 years ago and I still seethe when I remember it.

[Renaissance]

Ian

You are probably right. K. Power is bound to offer a huge bribe in the form of goods or cash in exchange for the co-operation of the British Embassy. If we now see good comments in the British media about K. Power, and how it was all just a misunderstanding, we can assume that the person at the embassy was bribed sufficiently. It would be nice to think that the police involved will at least be transferred to work at the Ministry of Inactive Posts, but I will carry on dreaming.

K. Power may try to labour the point that this couple is guilty. Even if they are, the couple has simply brought to light a scam that has been going on for a long time, so we should not be fooled by their tactics.